


The Price

by letthemysterybe



Category: Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bellamione Cult's July Event 2020, Bellamione Cult: July Event 2020, Discord: Bellamione Cult, Divorce, F/F, I’m sorry, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25480846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letthemysterybe/pseuds/letthemysterybe
Summary: They had it all, once. But nothing lasts.(For the prompt: “Fuck you, pay me.”)
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 11
Kudos: 58





	The Price

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt was so great and I had to have a go at it!
> 
> NOT AT ALL in the same universe as my other stuff. I don’t really see this as their ending or the way their story goes in any way.
> 
> Written very quickly with minimal editing, so,,, yeah dudes.

“Fuck you. Pay me.”

“Excuse me?”

The look that crossed her — er, her wife, for the moment — ‘s face was pretty much what Bellatrix had expected it to be: indignant and dumbfounded, with a hint of that haughty self-righteousness that used to make her weak at the knees, but these days was nothing more than grating and infuriating.

But Bellatrix was done being ruined by this. She was done standing down for the sake of Hermione’s ego, done being the beta for someone whose every need and want and ambition came before anything in their household. 

She’d had her three weeks of utter ruin at Andy’s house, not getting out of bed, not eating, crying more than she ever had in her life and needing both of her sisters there around the clock to keep her from falling over the edge, from feeling like she’d failed at the most important thing to her. For feeling like she’d failed her children. For feeling like she’d failed herself. 

And then finally, she woke up one morning and knew what she had to do. She had to get over herself, and be there for her daughters just as her sisters had been there for her. Just as Hermione had never been for any of them. 

She had to put this all behind her and take what she needed and deserved. 

And she was ready to fight for it. 

So here she was, in Hermione’s office at the Ministry, facing her for the first time since she’d told her she was done being a second thought. 

She’d let Hermione know that she wanted a divorce on their anniversary, which Hermione had forgotten. 

Hermione had been shocked, and had done her begging and made her excuses, but when she realized Bellatrix was serious, she’d drawn up the terms of their separation. 

They were, to put it mildly, ludicrously fucking lopsided. 

“You heard what I said. You’re taking everything, so fuck you and give me money, then. The only way I’m signing that fucking paper is if you give me back all that I put in. I’ll settle for nothing less than fifty percent. If you can’t do that then I’ll take you to court and run you dry for every last sickle you have.”

She was relieved she remembered the script Andy had coached her through — she was usually one to speak from her heart and not her brain, and her heart was currently saying something infinitely more inflammatory and much less logically sound. 

Hermione scoffed. 

“And what gives you the right to do that?” 

“Because I’ve put in way more than you ever have, and you should consider yourself lucky that I’m only going after half.” 

Andy made her repeat that one over and over and over, during the worst of it, when she’d turned it all upside down and wondered if it was actually all _her_ fault, convinced that she was terrible and horrible and not deserving of anything. 

_“Fuck that, Bella!”_ Andy had yelled in her face, after slapping her to snap her out of her self-loathing. (Black family coping mechanisms were eccentric, but effective). 

“You _didn’t,_ Bellatrix,” Hermione argued, in that know-it-all tatter that she loved to lecture people with. “If I recall correctly, it was my salary that bought the properties, my salary that paid for everything we have, and my salary that raised our children.”

The fucking nerve this woman had. 

Bellatrix had been required to pay reparations for her crimes, and she did so willingly, without any fuss, because she had no use for ill-begotten blood money. Hermione had been so proud of her at the time, and Bellatrix remembered feeling proud of herself, too, for taking one of the first steps into her new life, a life in which she only did good things that helped people.

“Yeah, your salary and _me._ I’m talking about the time, Hermione. You spent all of yours making your fucking money while I spent all of mine raising the girls without you. And if you think I’m going for anything less than primary custody then you are sorely mistaken — ”

_“Excuse me?”_

Hermione leapt to her feet. Bellatrix remained in her cushy chair, and stared straight up at her. 

“Merlin, remember when you showed me what records were? You’re like a broken one of those. Why does it come as a surprise to you that I’d want them?”

“Because I’m — ”

“Because you're the Minister?” Bellatrix actually laughed. “Because you’re Hermione Granger? Because you have all the good PR and I’m me?”

“Because they’re my children, too!”

“And yet they barely know you. I may be me, and I may be shit at a lot of things, but I know that I was a damn good wife and I am a damn good mother. You haven’t been either.”

Bellatrix wasn’t expecting her heart to lurch when she saw the way that cut through Hermione. The woman’s eyes went wide and — and they were shining, now, when confronted with the truth of it. 

It cut Bellatrix, too. Because, despite her grandstanding, she was far from over this. They were both at the very early stages of mourning a lifetime together. 

They looked at each other, both silent for a time as they let the enormity of what was happening sink down around them. This was the longest they’d been alone together in years, not counting the few hours a night they slept in the same bed, backs turned to each other and several feet between them. 

She remembered the beginning, and how the militant career woman in front of her was once a captivating, open, starry-eyed girl brimming with hopes and dreams and promises, for them, for the world, and Bellatrix remembered how she fell so hard for that pure and genuine soul. She remembered the birth of their first child, and how beautiful Hermione looked holding the squirming bundle in her arms, and how her chest had swelled with pride and boundless, boundless love, when Hermione handed her over for the first time and Bellatrix looked down to see their daughter, a perfect mix of _them,_ a living embodiment of their love for each other and everything that was good about the world. 

Hermione seemed to be going on a similar thought journey, if the way she kept glancing at the framed photo on her desk was any indication. (There was a time when Bellatrix wouldn’t have needed to rely on body language to gauge Hermione’s thoughts, because they’d once been so trusting of each other that there were no mental walls up and thoughts flowed freely between them). 

The photo was from the first Christmas Callidora had come home from Hogwarts, when she was eleven and Isla was barely nine. They’d chosen to forego their traditional holiday at the Burrow, which was a notoriously jolly event but always packed to the seams with _people —_ Potters, Weasleys, Lovegoods and Longbottoms, Andy and Teddy and even Draco and Narcissa. 

But they’d needed to be together. Just the four of them. Things had already begun to fall apart in their marriage, although it was only the very beginning of that long and drawn out process, and she wasn’t sure either of them were aware of it at the time, other than a lingering feeling that _something_ was wrong. 

Hermione’d had her busiest year yet as Minister and the house felt so empty with their bubbly, smiley Callidora gone. They’d gone to a small cabin in the French Alps and spent a full week reconnecting — sledding and building snowmen and drinking hot cocoa by the fire. It seemed to work. They had _fun._

They set their camera up and snapped a photo of the four of them — Callidora, holding her new Firebolt and smiling so big her eyes disappeared, and Isla next to her, laying her head on her sister’s shoulder in a rare show of sisterly affection, seeing as the two were almost always at each other’s throats. Her big, black eyes looked straight into the camera and a grin found its way onto her usually unreadable face. Bellatrix stood behind them, arms hanging over each of their shoulders, grinning too, as Hermione looped her arms around her neck and kissed her cheek.

Merlin, how Bellatrix longed to give her girls that perfect family in the picture frame. She felt like a failure for taking that from them.

But she also knew that she didn’t want them to have to live among the dysfunction. 

Hermione sniffed suddenly, and swiped quickly at her eyes, clawing herself out of whatever emotional rabbit hole she was going down and straightening her back. She looked at Bellatrix now with a much more familiar face — pinched, closed, and controlled. 

Bellatrix met that with a mask of her own. 

“It would be cruel and unusual punishment for them to have to live with a stranger,” Bellatrix continued. “I’m going to be nice, because I believe it would _also_ be cruel to _them_ to keep them from you entirely, so I will let you have supervised weekends over the summer and your choice of holiday with advance permission. That will, of course, be entirely at my discretion and will not be in the legal agreement, and you will have to earn my good faith and _theirs_ for it to be an ongoing arrangement.”

Hermione shook her head in disbelief.

“You have to be bloody mad if you think I’d agree to that.”

“Haven’t you heard? I am.”

Hermione had the decency to look ashamed.

“I said I was sorry for that, Bellatrix. It was taken wildly out of context and I was speaking off the record.”

“Darling, I really don’t give a shit.” Bellatrix stood up and pushed her chair in. “I don’t give a shit about the houses, either, or the stuff. All I want are my kids, and the money I need to raise them.”

Hermione met her eyes. Bellatrix felt cold. 

“Take me to court, then, Bella.”

“Gladly. See you there.”

The door was heavy when she closed it behind her. 


End file.
